I was there at STAS right after the death of Archbishop Lefebvre

Lad, can you tell us what exact years you attended STAS as a seminarian?

All I will respond so far is:

Your original e-mails on Sept 5th, if I read them at all, were skimmed at most and deleted as spam. I get pseudo-letters every day -- by the dozen -- which look just like this. Requests to post their "content" on my "website", letters from Nigerian princes, letters from "hackers" who claim to have hacked me and threaten me with blackmail (claiming to have video evidence of -- let's just say activities I never do), and the like. In short, your emails got caught in the pile of spam I sort through every day.

This is the first I've heard about this, so you're going to have to give me a few days to form a final, reasoned, well-thought-out response. A response worthy of publishing, since they have promised to publish my response.
I'll be publishing it on CathInfo as well.

I have some initial thoughts, but I won't share them yet. I'm biting my tongue.
You are all welcome to chime in, giving your thoughts, opinions, advice, and gut feelings.

Have you decided if you will do the debate or not?

Have you decided if you will do the debate or not?

I would consider it a waste of time.

I will be declining your offer to debate, for the following reasons:

1. I fail to see the point of 2 Catholic laymen debating about Church matters.
2. The topic "The Resistance" is far too vague. What topics would actually be discussed? What specific questions or topics are up for debate exactly?
3. You never mentioned who the Moderator would be. Debates usually have some kind of Moderator, trusted by both sides.
4. Historical evidence of bad faith in my proposed opponent, provided by CathInfo member "BaldwinIV".
https://www.cathinfo.com/sspx-resistance-news/invited-to-debate-the-'true-resistance'/msg1001004/#msg1001004
5. Epic mismatch in popularity and platform size between the elephant that is CathInfo, and the ant that is the Recusant/Catholic Trumpet.

I am willing to explain my reasoning a bit further:

I haven't been personally involved in debates before. However, "I was born on a day, but it wasn't yesterday." I am familiar with many of the tricks and pitfalls of debating subjects like this, thanks to my broad life experience.

For example, it is usually a good practice to give each participant a list of questions that will be asked (or discussed/debated), so there are no "surprises". Otherwise one side could have a hit list of 200 items (valid, invalid, or in-between) that could be fired off to make the other side look bad, and even if I did a perfect job of destroying each one, the opponent could ignore each "win" and simply move on to the next item.  I would then be on the defensive the entire time. In the end, I would have nothing to gain, but everything to lose. No thanks.

So we're to debate the broad topic of "The Resistance"? That might sound OK at first glance, but what does that mean exactly?

Let's break it down:
Christianity - the religion founded by Jesus Christ Himself.
Catholicism - to distinguish the True Faith from the Protestant sects that arose after the Protestant Revolt.
Traditional Catholicism - basically Catholicism, but distinguishes from the counterfeit Conciliar Church that was founded after Vatican II.
SSPX - A specific Order (actually a Pious Union) in the Catholic Church, representing a specific position on the Crisis in the Church (for lack of a better term, "Recognize and Resist" the Pope)
Resistance - a remnant of the SSPX faithful and clergy that chose to resist, or refuse to go along with, the new orientation of the SSPX which was clearly more favorable to the Conciliar Church and Vatican II.

Isn't it kind of odd for 2 laymen to be publicly debating "The Resistance" or "the remnant of a religious order of the Church founded by Christ"? Who cares what 2 laymen think? Even if they are handy with computers, video editing, organization, newsletters, websites, etc. that doesn't make them a priest or bishop, nor does it give them ANY authority to represent or speak for a whole movement. That goes for you, and it goes for me.

This seems like a vain attempt to aggrandize an Internet persona. So let me understand this proposed debate. Greg Taylor is the "mouthpiece" or "main personality" of the so-called "True resistance"; I guess I'm supposed to take up the mantle of the rest of the Resistance?
Why? That is not my place to take, and I believe my current role at CathInfo is more than sufficient for me. I own and moderate the largest Traditional Catholic discussion forum; I keep the peace, offer my opinions, etc. but I'm not an authority. Nor do I ever claim to be an authority. I always strive to know my place and keep a humble attitude, even though I happen to be the moderator. (Just as a married person must practice chastity within marriage, and a business owner must practice the spirit of poverty).

You mentioned "For the clarity of the faithful". What are you talking about? I AM part of the faithful. I'm not above "the faithful" nor am I a leader of "the faithful". That must be a priest or bishop. Now maybe I could be considered a leader on CathInfo or something, but not a leader of "the faithful" as such. You might as well say I'm a leader of the flock, a.k.a. a pastor. No! For a Catholic, the only "pastor of the flock" is an ordained PRIEST. I am a mere PART OF that flock.

Besides my lack of authority, there are also the huge knowledge gaps. Even on the topic of "The Resistance", I am more ignorant than knowledgeable. Perhaps I am an expert on the Resistance in Texas; that is where I live. I would also claim an intermediate level of expertise in "History of the Resistance" from the earliest days, since I was there at the very beginning, and I have run the largest Resistance-friendly discussion forum in the English-speaking world. I know about most of the major events that have taken place especially in the early, foundational years. But beyond that, there are various priests, chapels, conflicts, locations, and countries of which I know exactly nothing! And about most Resistance priests I know very little, or only the very basics.

Lastly, let's address the elephant in the room. Who stands to gain by this debate? Certainly not me or CathInfo, which has several orders of magnitude more readers/members than Greg Taylor's publication and/or any "micro fora" set up in support of Fr. Hewko. A couple weeks ago the one-millionth post was made on CathInfo, which celebrated its 19th anniversary in August 2025. The latest member to join was #9092. (My account is member #4)

The latest member to join was #9092. (My account is member #4)

So, who were the first three?  I am guessing your wife may be one of the three, but inquiring minds want to know... 

Then there's this sort ...

https://www.cathinfo.com/mlist/?sort=posts;start=0;desc

I've become more and more cynical of debates anyway, since ... not unlike with certain topics here ... very few in the audience are open-minded and open to being persuaded of having been wrong, but mostly join in hoping "their guy" wins, and makes the other side look bad, in an attempt more to convince themselves than they're right than to convince those who might be in error of the truth (from a motivation of charity), just as if you were watching your favorite sports team, hoping they would win.  Eric Dubay actually had a good video some time ago about debating.

You pointed out that there are many extremely dishonest debating styles that hinge on throwing out as many gratuitious assertions as you can so that, when your opponent simply does not have the time to address even a couple of the dizzying array of nonsense they pitch out there, they declare victory by assuming their assertions are true unless they've been refutued, and since they threw out 100 of them and you only had time to deal adequately with 2, they win 98 -- or so that's the impression they try to produce.

It's what Non-Professor Dave pulled on Flat Earth Dave, the he was made to look bad by the jackass, who also excels in peppering his assertions with personal insults and any number of other logical fallacies.  If you take the time to dissect his nonsense, it consists of little more than the proverbial manure that he throws by the bucketful at the wall, and inevitably some of it's going to stink and make the other guy smell bad.

Yes, this is one of the examples I had in mind. I've heard/seen it done, it's quite shameful, and I'm not going to place myself in that kind of position.

You summarized it very nicely with the "fling manure" analogy. You'll end up looking (and smelling) bad, even though it was all a bunch of crap, and you're completely innocent and in-the-right.

Imagine agreeing to a debate with a person of bad will -- they have 100 false accusations to fling at you. By the end of it, you'd feel extremely dirty even though you were 100% innocent of all the charges. "Where there's smoke, there's fire." It really makes you question the wisdom of that saying, doesn't it? I mean, it's not true at all. I could bear false witness 100 times against Ladislaus here, it would be 100% BS, and YET -- his reputation would be damaged somewhat, even he himself (and his close loved ones) would be questioning themselves. "Where there's smoke there's fire" -- yeah right. Sometimes it's just the steam from someone's load of bullcrap they brought in by wheelbarrow.